How influencer marketing made PALWORLD the biggest indie game launch of the decade

I get by with a little help from my pals…

In 2024, a narrative is emerging that suggests that indie games are very much on top, taking headlines and players away from household name AAA titles. The name that typifies this trend has got to be Palworld, by Japanese studio Pocket Pair, which has popped up almost entirely out of nowhere to catch gamers, and the major studios, by surprise.

With over 25 million players since its release in January, and coverage in media as mainstream as the BBC, Palworld has proven a runaway success in every metric. An impressive launch for a game dubbed ‘Pokémon with guns’ – a similarity that has stuck and drawn The Pokémon Company itself into the conversation. But how did this seemingly overnight success come about, and what, if anything, can other indie game studies learn from it?

The masterful marketing play that Pocket Pair pulled off was activated just a few weeks prior to the game’s release. Early access game codes were sent to a huge number of streamers in a coordinated influencer campaign. Communities big and small were targeted strategically, with game codes offered to smaller streamers, and payments made to some larger streamers to play Palworld, according to in-the-know sources.

What helped this strategy be effective wasn’t just the influencer's reach, but their relevance too. Pocket Pair sought a specific kind of influencer for whom the game would resonate. This included players of open-world MMOs and survival games such as Rust, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, as well as VTubers, who were deemed on-brand for Palworld on account of their anime-style avatars. This refined targeting set Palworld up for a winning influencer campaign.

Timing was of the essence, with most of these hand-picked influencers gaining access to the game post-embargo less than a week before the game’s official release. The swift turnaround time meant that Pocket Pair were able to strike while the iron was hot, converting early access hype into real release day sales.

Palworld proves that don’t need an AAA sized marketing budget to create a hit game. It also shows that investing your resources into the right area is more important than ever.

For help launching the perfect influencer marketing campaign for your game, book a conversation with Demise Live.